The Chaotic Caves of the Jontus' Grind - Episode 2. The Hidden Valley

Draw Three Adventure Cards

D&D Next seems to be full of surprises: apart from our mostly human team, to our shock, we didn’t start the dungeon in tavern! Not even a taverna, alehouse, gin mill, pub, bar, inn, cocktail lounge, wine bar or restaurant! (thanks google) - perhaps our home grown campaigns are getting predictable.

We are back at The Jontus’ Grind. Which is part of a kingdom that’s fragmenting. The town is besieged on all sides and we have been tasked by the local authorities to see if we can find an alternate supply route to the town.

The Jontus’ Grind is in a valley in a mountain range with only two known ways in or out. Our job is to find another way so the siege can be broken. The area is host to a number of silver mines. The miners, many dwarven, are currently busy maintaining the walls for the siege.

Off we set. Apparently other groups where assigned the same task and set off in different directions but we found that too hard to believe.

After not too long (and drawing the requisite cards), we found a hidden valley (well, more like a ravine) that leads in a promising direction. It is dotted along the sides with many ominous looking caves.

We rolled perception checks. Your keen eyed monk rolled a sixteen only beaten by the barbarian rolling a nineteen, and our mage who also rolled a nineteen. So far D&D Next is a great improvement - we all like it! Apart from our hard-of-seeing rogue who rolled a five.

We found bones of animals and humanoids. But as the ravine still lead away from The Jontus’ Grind, we continued (but only after our instinct for self preservation asserted itself). I know we are level one characters again, but we carry on like this when we are level 20 with 200 hit points (well I wish…).

So we decided to head for the high ground, along the ridge-line of the ravine. I supposed this made sense. As a scouting party we were able to see that the ravine continued into a steeper rocky drop where, with some effort, it could probably be made passable, though I am not a engineer, nor for that matter a dwarf.

So we had successfully found a passable way out of The Jontus’ Grind. What should we do? Head back to the town to report this? Or poke a stick into one of these caves?

…

We (someone will say the mage) had a 10 foot pole, so we decided to have a look in one of the caves.

This is where your scribe becomes a bit uncertain. Our Mage pulled out of his smalls an owl, whispered to it, and sent it into a cave (not the cave, no, our cave). He was able to report “it looks like a maze of twisty little passages, all alike”. Well, there was a bit more to it, but in one of them we found a skeleton in a room guarding, I think, a gem. This image came to my mind:

Maybe that’s why I am a bad monk, my master told me “here take the pebble, now bugger off”

To be continued…

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